From tutorial programs to parental education, Billie Martinez works to reverse slide

It’s a day before Halloween and teacher Teresa Santos is getting in the spirit.

“I’m going to try to trick you,” she tells her second-graders. “The word is tennis.”

Santos tells the students to split up the word in their heads and write the letters for each sound on sticky notes at their desk. The students begin writing. Some hold up fingers to count off syllables.

Santos walks around the classroom. “I see a lot of kids who are close.”

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It could be said that “N” has a negative connotation at the school, Billie Martinez Elementary in north Greeley.

Billie Martinez tumbled into the corrective action phase of the No Child Left Behind law by collecting N’s — as in “not satisfactory” in reading — for several years, worst in 18,000-student Greeley-Evans School District 6.

The federal law aims to have every student proficient at grade level in math and reading by 2014. A school must meet a host of targets each year to show progress toward proficiency. Those targets are called adequate yearly progress, or AYP.

The penalties become more severe each year a school does not meet AYP. With the threat of being stripped of their federal funding, schools and districts, are forced to begin an improvement process if they don’t meet their math and reading targets for two years running.

In District 6, Martinez and Bella Romero Elementary School fell into the improvement process for reading, with Martinez slipping to the more severe “corrective action,” phase.

If Martinez had not met its reading goals last school year, it could have moved to the most severe phase — a restructuring phase that could have turned it into a charter school.

While Bella Romero has 57 percent English language learners, Billie Martinez’s literacy issues are even more pronounced. The school has 83 percent of students learning English, and it is the district’s most impoverished school with 98 percent of students qualifying for free and reduced lunches, the federal standard for poverty.

“Their needs are significant,” said Kathi Van Soest, District 6 director of priority schools and grants. “For them to have made AYP in reading this year (2005-06) was significant. And if they can make AYP next year (2006-07), they will be out of the school improvement phase.”

It could be close, though, because Martinez missed AYP in math last spring. That means if it falls short on the targets again next spring, the school will go to year-one improvement.

Still, there are signs Billie Martinez is getting closer to the mark.

How did Martinez lapse into the corrective action phase, which requires both a school improvement plan and outside tutorial programs?

“They just really didn’t have this significant level of support prior to this,” Van Soest said, “from the district, and getting outside auditors coming in and helping them figure out how they could improve.”

As part of the school improvement phase, Martinez sends letters to all parents notifying them of the status and offering school choice. Nine families took the option and left the school.

Van Soest said she thinks more parents didn’t take the option because — despite the problems at Martinez — they have confidence in the school.

“They want their children to attend a neighborhood school and feel safe, feel like their children are safe,” she said. “And they see their children learning and don’t want to send their child on a bus clear across town.”

As part of the school improvement process, Martinez has fortified academics in numerous ways.

An audit took place, several intervention programs have been launched — most in their second year — and English is emphasized like never before at the mostly Latino school.

Paul Urioste, in his first year as Martinez principal, said the school has been forced to change its mindset. Just because most of the students’ parents are Spanish speakers, he said, that doesn’t mean Billie Martinez is a Spanish-speaking school.

“I think we use that as an excuse versus trying to push (students) into learning. It’s not a crutch,” Urioste said. “We know the reality, and now what are we going to do? It’s just focused the needs toward the kids. Now let’s move on.”

The school has cut back on Spanish in the classroom. Whereas Martinez previously provided some Spanish-only instruction in various subject areas in grades K-5, this year students only hear the language in K-1 math.

“What we’re finding is the kids need more exposure to the English language,” Urioste said.

The school is also in its second year of offering four after-school tutorial programs from which parents can choose. This year District 6 will spend $320,000 on these programs

The tutorials have small teacher-to-student ratios, allowing more intensive instruction.

Martinez also does regular reading and math diagnostics to measure students’ progress. The students with more learning needs are tested more often to make sure they are staying on track.

The kids so far are responding to the new initiatives, which can have them learning from the first bell at 8:40 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Terry Arana is again teaching as part of Tutor Train, the most-popular tutorial program at Martinez. Arana said her daughter, now a fourth-grader, benefited from the program as a third-grader.

Columba Arana tested “unsatisfactory” in reading and math at the start of last year. By the end of the year, she was at the proficient level in both subjects, Terry said.

“For me and for my daughter it was the best program,” she said. “The teacher is good.”

Tutor Train has two students to one teacher and uses Martinez faculty, so teachers are familiar with kids’ skill levels.

Teacher Teresa Santos helps with Brain Fuse, the after-school program where students get one-on-one help. “For the kids, it’s above and beyond what they’re learning in the classroom,” Santos said.

Interest in learning is on the upswing in Santos’ classes. Students get jazzed about the reading program, which runs two hours daily.

“It was kind of a struggle at first, but they like doing the cards and doing it together and responding as a class,” Santos said. “We celebrate when we get everything done. Each lesson has so many components you have to finish in an allotted time … They ask, ‘Did we finish it? Did we complete everything that needed to be done?’ “

Van Soest, the priority schools director, said students at Billie Martinez and Bella Romero are making strides. It’s easy to pinpoint where the turnarounds begin, she said.

“In both buildings, it came down to the teachers’ hard work to make it happen,” Van Soest said.